Also published (in Britain) as Murder After Hours. A considerably shorter version was published in Collier's under the title The Outraged Heart.

Lady Angkatell, intrigued by the criminal mind, has invited Hercule Poirot to her estate for a weekend house party. The Belgian detective's arrival at the Hollow is met with an elaborate tableau staged for his amusement. A doctor lies in a puddle of red paint. His timid wife stands over his body with a gun, while the other guests look suitably shocked. But this was no charade. The paint was blood and the corpse was real, turning a pleasant country weekend into one of the legendary Poirot's most baffling cases.